This correctly reports the pH of the oceans at around 8.14, but it somehow skips the important point that this is alkaline.

The authors included a graph with the comment 'NOAA provides evidence for upwelling of corrosive "acidified" water onto the Continental Shelf' and explain that this "corosive 'acidified'" means corrosive of calcium carbonate. Acidification is moving the pH toward 7, or neutral.

It is true that coral and other shellfish do better in the current alkaline conditions than in more neutral ones. But that is not true of life in general. Somewhere between very acidic and very alkaline is an optimum - or a series of optima - in which life in the sea could thrive best - if it had time to adapt.

The shellfish gene might run into problems, but other selfish genes will take advantage.